VeeshanVault

http://consumerist.com/5162727/jeep-inc ... 00-in-cash

To Summarize: Young adult attempts to buy a jeep with a check, but can't get the car listed on the site, and different salesmen try to get him to jump through hoops, then pay $5000 more for the car.

I have heard many stories like this regarding buying American cars. I realize that "American cars" is a generalization, but from my own experiences of buying a car (German, BMW), and being with my parents buying a car (Japanese, Honda and Toyota), I have never experience anything close to this. Obviously, the person selling the care was still a salesman, but they were a ton more honest about how they were screwing me/my parents over.

Anyone else have a terrible experience like that guy?

I had heard good things about the quality of Jeep vehicles

Haha, Jeep is pretty much rock bottom when it comes to quality and reliability.
This guy is an idiot.

Quality of Jeep vehicles has been well known to be terrible for a good number of years.

That said, American automakers are losing money, and have been for several years now. They have been selling less cars, and continuing to output high profit vehicles that are sitting on lots as consumers have shifted to more economy minded, fuel efficient vehicles. It's fairly easy to draw a conclusion that American auto dealers are also being affected by this. If the producer is moving less units, the distributor of those units is losing money as well. As such, the dealerships are doing anything they can to squeeze a few more bucks out of those few units they do sell in an effort to offset their diminishing revenues and increasing inventory costs.

miir wrote:

I had heard good things about the quality of Jeep vehicles

Haha, Jeep is pretty much rock bottom when it comes to quality and reliability.
This guy is an idiot.

Oh yeah, the jeep buyer is definitely an idiot. I mean, the salesman almost convinced him to finance the car and pay more money for it for some instant cash back twice.

A few thoughts:

I have also heard of the lack of quality of jeeps, but a friend of mine has the SRT 8 one, and my girlfriend has a Compass, and neither one of them have had issues with their vehicles at all, so I guess they aren't all bad.

Also, while I'm certain this wasn't the dealers intention, the kid should have gone with the financing and was too stupid to realize this. He could have taken the financing and got the cash back, then paid the loan off in full the next day. The only catch would be if they charge a fee for paying the loan off in full, which is entirely possible, but judging by that story I doubt he even considered this.

Funkmasterr wrote: Also, while I'm certain this wasn't the dealers intention, the kid should have gone with the financing and was too stupid to realize this. He could have taken the financing and got the cash back, then paid the loan off in full the next day. The only catch would be if they charge a fee for paying the loan off in full, which is entirely possible, but judging by that story I doubt he even considered this.

Except the financing was more than the money he had, even after the cash back, and more than what the care would have cost assuming he had paid for it up front.

Aardor wrote:

Funkmasterr wrote: Also, while I'm certain this wasn't the dealers intention, the kid should have gone with the financing and was too stupid to realize this. He could have taken the financing and got the cash back, then paid the loan off in full the next day. The only catch would be if they charge a fee for paying the loan off in full, which is entirely possible, but judging by that story I doubt he even considered this.

Except the financing was more than the money he had, even after the cash back, and more than what the care would have cost assuming he had paid for it up front.

The 7k more for the financing was assuming he paid it over the full life of the loan, so that 7k was the interest that would have accrued over whatever the terms of the loan were.

Funkmasterr wrote:

Aardor wrote:

Funkmasterr wrote: Also, while I'm certain this wasn't the dealers intention, the kid should have gone with the financing and was too stupid to realize this. He could have taken the financing and got the cash back, then paid the loan off in full the next day. The only catch would be if they charge a fee for paying the loan off in full, which is entirely possible, but judging by that story I doubt he even considered this.

Except the financing was more than the money he had, even after the cash back, and more than what the care would have cost assuming he had paid for it up front.

The 7k more for the financing was assuming he paid it over the full life of the loan, so that 7k was the interest that would have accrued over whatever the terms of the loan were.

The $31,732 was the amount the loan was applying for, which I did not think included interest over 5 years, but I could be wrong.

Aardor wrote:

Funkmasterr wrote:

Aardor wrote:

Funkmasterr wrote: Also, while I'm certain this wasn't the dealers intention, the kid should have gone with the financing and was too stupid to realize this. He could have taken the financing and got the cash back, then paid the loan off in full the next day. The only catch would be if they charge a fee for paying the loan off in full, which is entirely possible, but judging by that story I doubt he even considered this.

Except the financing was more than the money he had, even after the cash back, and more than what the care would have cost assuming he had paid for it up front.

The 7k more for the financing was assuming he paid it over the full life of the loan, so that 7k was the interest that would have accrued over whatever the terms of the loan were.

The $31,732 was the amount the loan was applying for, which I did not think included interest over 5 years, but I could be wrong.

If that's the case, that doesn't make any sense. I thought if I remember correctly that they told him that price was for the wrong car or something when they called him back.

Dealers will absolutely over finance you if you're not smart enough to catch it. Generally speaking, you should never, ever finance through the dealership.
There are a whole slew of "dirty" tactics they will try to pull. There was an article/blog posted here a year or two ago where a guy recounted his experience of working as a car salesman and all the tricks/tactics the dealerships try to pull over on potential customers. Let me see if I can dig it up and link it.

edit. Found it. Kyoukan!

$32k for a Jeep... wtf. over!

Aslanna wrote:$32k for a Jeep... wtf. over!

Amen.

GM was tied up with profits in high margin vehicles that people don't demand as much any longer. In addition, GM pays tons and tons of money for fucked up and outdated pensions to former employees. According to a NYT article a read a week ago, GM has five times the number of pensions than they do current employees.
Chrysler just makes shit vehicles. They have and had a shitty pipeline for ages. Their disappearance would not be that earth-shaking.
Ford has been kind of flexible and reactive to the market the last few years. People still want F-150's and Mustangs. The Taurus, Focus and Escape have all improved. They dumped the shitty Jaguar and Lincoln and Volvo brands have legs.

I just picked up a 2008 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo, decked out with everything except the V8. Paid 19K for it. 5K miles later still happy with it. My family here has 4 Jeeps besides mine, my dad has a 2008 Grand Cherokee with the diesel, put 80K miles on it the first 6 months with zero problems.

We have 2 jeeps, plus I just got one for a company car and all 3 are great. No problems with the one over 100K miles, just basic maintenance.

Tyek wrote:We have 2 jeeps, plus I just got one for a company car and all 3 are great. No problems with the one over 100K miles, just basic maintenance.

my '92 Cherokee Laredo is pushing 180k miles with all original engine parts, except the starter i replaced last week. I haven't had a single problem except my power antenna fuse blowing so it doesn't retract anymore.

Biggest problem I've see with Jeeps is the owners, you've got to do all the maintenance or they go to crap.

Chrysler and GM have picked thier target demographic. They figure most people who buy new cars replace them in 3 to 5 years. So, they do not need to make them last longer than that. 60 - 100k is all they are expected to do. Wich, apparently has worked for them for the last 60 years. Now after that 60k thats when they go to hell in a hand basket. Door handles fall off, glove boxes stop closing, mirrors rattle, and transmissions explode. Seriously GMs have the worst transmisiion and drive train failure rates of any auto company. I have seen astro vans with 30k come into the shop with bad differentials, S-10 pickups needing thier 3rd transmission at 50k (both items should NEVER fail). Total crap. But people keep buying them. Morons.

Ford, they are not as bad, but still not as good as any Jap car out there. The Japanese take far too much pride in thier work to build crap. That's why I always recomend the big jap three when somone asks me what to buy. The jap cars wont be having those troubles until 300k milage. thats the difference. So dont say "I put 50k miles on my car and it's fine". Come back when you put 300k on it. Oh wait you couldnt.